


Noctuary

by Bruiches



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Andrastianism, Chant of Light, City Elf Culture and Customs, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Idealism, Self-Hatred, Trust, Trust Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 08:21:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6975274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bruiches/pseuds/Bruiches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>noctuary (ˈnɒktjʊərɪ)<br/>n, pl -ries<br/>a journal of what happens in the night</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noctuary

“Are you okay? You haven’t turned a page in ten minutes,” Jowan whispered. Eulalia flinched, and Jowan snickered in response. “I’m fine,” she breathed. On the other side of the room, Cullen raised his eyes from the transcribed Chant–their usual roost on weeknights–and surveyed his charges. Eulalia caught his gaze and flashed a closed-mouth, bloodless smile in a gesture of apology. Cullen reciprocated the smile and returned to his reading. Jowan slid closer to her. “What’s distracting you?” he asked, his mussed, inky hair now climbing her shoulder. “Is it your sunflower?”  
“Jowan, this is his post. It’s perfectly reasonable for him to be here right now.”  
“The library hardly needs a watchman after midnight,” he said. “I don’t see why they don’t just slap some neophyte onto the job… It seems wasteful to have a graduated Templar like Ser Cullen here.”  
“Maybe he likes to read. They wouldn’t refuse a Templar the opportunity to read the Maker’s revealed word.”  
Jowan clicked his tongue. “Right.”  
“Give him the benefit of the doubt,” she hissed, snapping her head back to her book on the table.  
“Alright. I know how you hate gossip,” he said, voice shaking with quiet laughter.  
She steered her eyes back to her book, dragging them over the uniform print. When she realized that she’d read the last paragraph on the page thrice, she turned the page. She had finished all of the reading that truly needed finishing over half an hour ago and was deriving no pleasure from the text. Slowly, she looked up. The dark, beaten boards of wood of making up the library’s ancient table sat in front of her. Her eyes traced the initials of couples, the hearts encircling them, and the symbols of anarchic groups and fraternities carved into the table’s planks, interrupting the thick whorls of the long-dead tree. She saw the top of the adjacent bench, a more recent acquisition that didn’t quite match the shade of the table and that was currently unoccupied. Her eyes roved over the dirty carpet spanning the space between Cullen’s table and Eulalia’s, its pile trampled into many different directions. She caught a glimpse of the tower’s stone floor and, under the neighboring table, of Cullen’s polished plate boots peeking out from under his Templar vestments. She realized that she was holding her breath. She let it escape as her gaze slid up Cullen’s rigid, sitting form, noting the embroidered sunburst in his lap, just barely visible under the table’s gloom.  
She looked over the surface of the table, at the gauntlets he’d left there, and especially at his bare hands buried in the Chant. The edges of the pages were dyed a deep red-pink, she noticed, and glistening in the candlelight. The gentle glow emitted by the miniscule tongue of flame made the pages appear almost wet. His fingers, calloused, she imagined, were tucked into the folds of the pages, marking passages deserving special attention, passages to which he’d return. Cullen licked the tip of a third finger–long, like the rest of his fingers, and even, all knuckles the same width–and slid it into the folds of the pages. Eulalia lifted her leg and tucked it under her slight body, balancing her weight on the hard curve of her ankle. Cullen was now drawing his fingers out slightly, exposing scarred knuckles, and pushing them back into the pages every now and then, slowly, seemingly absentmindedly. Eulalia feigned interest in her own book, still dutifully spread open before her, and rocked forward slightly, appreciating the thin fabric of apprentice robes.

“Excuse me, Jowan? Could you please stop that?” asked Cullen.  
Only then did Eulalia notice the drumming of Jowan’s knuckles against the polished surface of the table. She turned slightly. When their eyes met, Jowan’s mouth split into a lopsided smile.  
“Oh, right. Of course, Ser. I’m sorry for being a nuisance,” replied Jowan. Again he slid towards Eulalia, this time moving to whisper against her throat. “I must have been drumming for fifteen minutes. And I saw where you were looking. He was distracting you! You could have come clean.”  
Eulalia groaned, threw her arms onto the table and laid her head on top of them. “No, no, it’s okay. I won’t speak of it to anyone. Promise,” Jowan whispered.  
“I need to go. I’ve met someone.”  
Eulalia raised an eyebrow as Jowan uncurled himself and sidled off of the bench, laughing.  
“Goodnight, Sunshine. Goodnight, Ser Cullen,” he said.  
“Rest well, Jowan,” said Cullen.  
Eulalia watched Jowan as he exited, then turned back towards Cullen, wide-eyed. She flinched slightly when she met Cullen’s eyes, finding that they were fixed on her. Cullen only smiled. His broad, white teeth were still covered, but the expression was less anemic than their earlier exchanges. Eulalia let her eyes wander the rest of his face. He wore a slight blush, and his brown eyes were faintly watery.  
“Well,” he began. “I expect we’re alone for the rest of the night.”  
“Probably,” she said, standing up and stepping over the bench.  
She withdrew his last note from the pages of her creation textbook and quickly reread it.

Need to talk about something unpleasant, if you’ll hear it.

“Not your best penmanship,” she started, laughing a brittle laugh. “And you didn’t address my last epistle’s questions at all.” Cullen offered no defense, only looking up at her, rigid posture unchanged, as if awaiting a command. “I, um,” she started again, running a hand through her short hair, fingers lingering on her scattered braids. “I invited Jowan this time. He was sort of loud, so… sorry.”  
“It’s okay,” said Cullen. “Why did you ask him along?”  
“I was scared,” she said, and stood taller for the admission. “So, what’s the unpleasantness?”  
“They’ve set a date for your Harrowing.”  
“Is that it?” Eulalia asked, clear eyes widening.  
“They’ve asked me to be present,” he said, almost whiney. She looked at him for a second. The skin encircling his eyes was a bland grey and his lips were sapped of their usual pink. His whole face carried an uncharacteristic pallor. Eulalia flashed a smile, closed-mouth but real, and walked across the library to sit next to him. “So?,” she said.  
“Greagoir suspects that we are close,” he hissed.  
Eulalia stopped to reflect upon Greagoir, the deeps lines eroded into his face, the immovable scowl, and the thick, motionless eyebrows. She thought on Greagoir’s eyes, grey and vaguely milky, impossible to look into. She imagined that they might be difficult to see out of, but they were clearly serviceable enough for their employer, and perhaps even more useful than Eulalia’s 19 year-old pair.  
“Are we?” she asked, brows crowding together over the bridge of her narrow nose. “I don’t think we’re so close,” she said, eyes falling to the floor. Cullen began to speak, but his voice died in his throat. “What?” asked Eulalia, respectfully pausing to allow for Cullen to speak. He was grateful for his silverite breastplate, for it could not reveal that he was not breathing. When no words came to him, Eulalia started up again. “It’s silly for Greagoir to be suspicious of us for studying together when the other Templars,” she started, looking up from the floor and ignoring her fingernails biting her palms. Cullen had cocked his head.  
“When they what?”  
Eulalia sighed. “You all can be dangerous,” she said, quietly.  
“I-how? When? Who?” he asked, crossing his arms.  
“I’d prefer not to talk about it right now,” she said, flatly. She chewed her cheeks as she looked at him, nervousness overriding her concern for her appearance. “But I will, I promise. I’m tired.” When coppery blood filled her mouth, she realized that it was very true. “Get some rest, too, if you’re able. You look tired, Cullen.” She began to walk away, dragging her feet on the floor. She flinched when she felt Cullen’s cold hand around her wrist.  
“You need to tell me if you or anyone else feels unsafe,” he said, soberly. His eyes, she noticed, were no longer misty, and his grip was very firm but gentle enough for his glove to leave her free of bruises. Eulalia shivered at the metal's touch. “You are my charge,” he started, pausing and before swallowing thickly. “You are also a valued partner,” he said, with a probing, wobbly voice, uncertain of the veracity of its claim. “You and your peers deserve to be treated with respect,” he said, uncrossing his arms and settling into a less tense stance.  
“Thank you, Cullen,” she said, flat green eyes–their colouring was so consistent that she disliked them, thinking them like algae-swallowed ponds-darting up to meet his own warm brown ones surrounded by greyed skin.  
Eulalia trudged through the vacant halls, careful to walk exclusively on the tower’s badly beaten carpet, dotted with wax from the candle-stocked chandeliers hanging above, for minimum noise. She did not encounter any Templar, now did any wax fall on her and she muttered thanks to the Maker as she walked.  
When Eulalia reentered the apprentice’s dormitory, she removed her boots, holding them in her hands, and then padded to her bed. She stuck her hand out and slipped it over the bed pad, this time not flinching away when it landed upon a soft body, curled up into itself as if hiding.  
“Keili?” she whispered. Keili stirred by did not answer, instead falling back into a shallow shudder-filled sleep. Eulalia removed all her inessential articles of clothing and slid onto her firm mattress. Keili flinched, but eventually sidled up against Eulalia. Keili, still fully clothed and slightly roused, began to mumble in her sleep. Eulalia listened, trying to catch proper nouns. Keili was an unguarded sleep talker, repeating the word “no" and snatches of the chant, but never the person she was addressed. Eulalia did not sleep well. Keili alternately clung to and shoved her, and Eulalia listened out for names, though she heard none. Keili’s breath was making a wet spot against her neck. Eventually Eulalia forgot what she was listening for and slipped off into the Fade. Keili was gone when she awoke.


End file.
